Cruise Ship Docks Early After Being Hit With Norovirus

A cruise ship full of sick passengers had to dock in Texas after the ship was hit with a nasty norovirus.

The Crown Princess cruise ship made its original departure from Venice, Italy on December 2. The transatlantic voyage was transporting upwards of 2,600 guests and 1,180 crew members. The cruise was to be a 20-day-long excursion.

An article in Travelers Today writes that during the cruise several people on board became ill after contracting a norovirus. Gastrointestinal in nature, the virus causes diarrhea, vomiting, and stomach pain.

The norovirus cases contracted on the Crown Princess include 96 passengers as well as six members of the ship’s crew.

Contagious and easily transmitted person-to-person, norovirus outbreaks can easily occur in confined spaces such as cruise ships. Most cruise liners try to put measures in place to prevent the spread of illness among its guests by enforcing strict hygiene policies.

Karen Candy, a spokeswoman for the cruise line spoke of how the illness may have started:

“We suspect it was inadvertently brought abroad by embarking passengers. It seems to be heightened in Europe.”

According to The Houston Chronicle, staff of the Crown Princess took action to contain as much of the illness as possible. Sick passengers were quarantined within their rooms and looked after by medical personnel. The rooms were sanitized by staff three times daily while food was carefully served to avoid further contamination.

Gail Olezene, one of the ill passengers on board, received an extra surprise in the form of a bill for medical treatment. She expressed her unhappiness by saying:

“We got sick on their ship, and they charged us to make us better. The fact that they charged us anything was outrageous.”

The spreading norovirus illness caused the Princess Cruise ship to dock a day early in Galveston, Texas.